Abstract: Digital content contained on physical media rented to a customer who fails to return said media once the rental term has expired. Date information encoded onto the media or encoded within the content is used to determine that the rental period has expired. If the media containing the expired content is residing in a media player, the user is notified through a plurality of notification schemes. Customers of expired digital content can also be notified if the media player is connected to the internet even if the media containing the content is not currently residing in the media player. This invention solves several problems currently effecting content rental services and allows the rental services to conserve costs normally associated with notifying customers that their rental has expired.